United Germany Isn't a Threat to Its Neighbors

Article excerpt

AFTER Germany's second unification Oct. 3, a key question is,
what principles and objectives will guide its foreign policy?

The same issue was faced more than a century ago after the first
unification. In 1871, after waging three wars in seven years,
Prussia under the leadership of Wilhelm I and Bismarck succeeded in
unifying the many Germanic political entities. This achieved,
Germany faced the fundamental question of what type of foreign
policy should it follow. Would it continue to wage an aggressive
foreign policy, attempt to increase its acquisition of lands and
peoples, and risk upsetting the European power balance?

In 1877 Chancellor Bismarck issued the answer in his Bad
Kissingen Decree. Germany was satisfied. It would seek no more
gains, neither in Europe nor in other areas of the globe being
contested so hotly by other European states in their imperialistic
quests for colonies. Later leaders of Germany, Wilhelm II and
Hitler, would choose otherwise.

Germany now finds itself at a similar historical juncture. That
it will soon rise to the ranks of major-power status no longer seems
in question. American historian Fritz Stern recently characterized
Bonn, Washington, and Moscow as the "three centers of power in the
world today."

Certainly in an economic sense it has achieved this during the
past decade. The economic surge it has experienced for the past
eight years has been called the country's "second economic miracle."
Its growth rate last year was a phenomenal 4 percent. It has enjoyed
trade surpluses the entire decade, with its 1989 surplus reaching
over $75 billion. It is one of the world's leading exporters. It is
the chief Western trading partner of the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe.

The political manifestation of this power began well over a year
ago. Last spring West Germany for the first time publicly defied its
major allies, when it demanded that NATO begin negotiations with
Moscow on reducing short-range nuclear weapons. This has been
followed by German leadership in fashioning economic aid from its
hesitant allies for the Soviet Union.

A curious aspects of the march toward unification that began with
the crumbling of the Berlin Wall last Nov. 9 was the overwhelming
importance placed on the unified Germany's membership in the Western
alliance, apparently to prevent any German aberration. This issue
monopolized the headlines until the Soviet Union suddenly on July 16
dropped its objection to Germany's NATO membership. The emphasis
placed on the necessity of this seems to have been based on the
assumption that alliances exert overriding influence on a state's
foreign policy.

This is not borne out by the record. While Italy belonged to the
Triple Alliance in 1914 it chose not to enter World War I on the
side of its allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, declaring that the
war did not come within the terms of the treaty. …